A twice-weekly syndicated newspaper column on California public affairs.

Monday, June 11, 2018

BROWN REVEALS NAIVETE IN ASSUMING PUC IS FAIR

CALIFORNIA
FOCUS
FOR RELEASE: FRIDAY, JUNE 29, 2018, OR
THEREAFTER

BY THOMAS D. ELIAS

“BROWN REVEALS NAIVETE IN ASSUMING PUC IS FAIR”

Gov. Jerry Brown has made this year
something like a farewell tour, traveling the world as the de facto leader of
American environmentalism and basking in compliments from major state and
national media over his bringing California back from financial collapse while
growing the state’s economy into the world’s fifth largest.

These are major achievements, not to
be denied. But neither can anyone deny the fact he has tolerated, if not
suborned, corruption and unfairness from his appointees to the state’s most
powerful regulatory commissions.

The outgoing governor’s naivete toward
his favored officials has been staggering, and a recent veto message from him
demonstrates the unsuspecting trust he continues to give them.

Brown, for example, knew the
unfairness of the grant-giving practices of the state Energy Commission as it
doled out multi-million-dollar grants for building hydrogen refueling stations
around the state while preparing for use of H2-powered cars whose exhaust is
nothing but drops of water. No greenhouse gases at all.2HH

Building the stations with gasoline
tax money was a worthy project, but at one point that commission had to pull
back $28 million in grants because this column exposed the sheer unfairness of its
grant-giving process. Later, the commission refused to cancel a large grant to
an outfit whose leader had
trained the commission’s own staff in how to evaluate grant applications – and
then just three months later submitted one that fit all the criteria he had
trained staff to look for.

Brown knew about these plainly
unjustified actions, but did nothing and in fact reappointed the commission’s
chairman, Robert Weisenmiller.

His actions toward the even more
powerful state Public Utilities Commission have been similar. When the
commission’s former president, Michael Peevey, met secretly with utility
executives to hash out a clandestine deal sticking consumers with most costs
for the failure of the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station, Brown did not
object and let Peevey serve out his term.

Then he appointed his former aide
Michael Picker, who voted for that corrupt San Onofre settlement as one of his
first acts on the commission, to replace Peevey. As The Who once sang, “Meet
the new boss, same as the old boss.”

Now Brown has vetoed a relatively
minor bill designed to keep homeowners using rooftop solar photovoltaic power
from being overcharged. The bill, by Republican Assemblyman Jim Patterson of
Fresno, demanded that electric providers like Pacific Gas & Electric,
Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric compute the state’s
average residential power use and set a baseline quantity for residential
electricity, excluding power generated by customers themselves.

Brown’s veto message called the bill
“premature.” He noted that the PUC already can exclude customers with “onsite
generation” when it figures average consumption.

Said Brown, “The commission will
determine whether or not to exclude customers with onsite generation through
the general rate case process…I believe the commission will act to ensure that
energy costs to ratepayers are fair and equitable.”

That’s about as naïve a statement as
anyone could make about energy price regulation in this state, which has the
highest electric rates in the Lower 48 states, and features utility companies continually
pressing for even more profits.

It’s a fairy tale to believe the PUC’s
processes are fair and equitable. Rather, they have been stacked in favor of
utilities for more than half a century, with some PUC members moving to big
utility company jobs and some utility executives, like Peevey, moving onto the
commission.

The general rate case process cited so
trustingly by Brown has also long been as good as fixed. Utilities invariably request
larger-than-needed rate increases even when profits are historically high, all
the while knowing the PUC will cut their proposals by about half and then brag
about “saving” money for consumers.

So there’s every reason to believe the
PUC will conspire with utilities that hate the idea of rooftop solar to
penalize those who install it. It’s simply naïve to think otherwise, as Brown
plainly does.

The bottom line: There’s no disputing
the constructive aspects of Brown’s second eight years as governor. But there’s
also no doubt about the unfair practices and actions he’s tolerated and/or
approved.

-30- Email Thomas Elias at tdelias@aol.com. His
book, "The Burzynski Breakthrough: The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and
the Government’s Campaign to Squelch It," is now available in a soft cover
fourth edition. For more Elias columns, go to www.californiafocus.net

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About Me

Thomas Elias writes the syndicated California Focus column, appearing twice weekly in 88 newspapers around California, with circulation over 2.2 million.
He has won numerous awards from organizations like the National Headliners Club, the California Newspaper Publishers Association, the Los Angeles Press Club, and the California Taxpayers Association. He has been nominated three times for the Pulitzer Prize in distinguished commentary.
Elias is the author of two books, "The Burzynski Breakthrough: The Most Promising Cancer Treatment and the Government's Campaign to Squelch It" (now in its third edition; also published in Japanese and recently optioned for a television movie) and "The Simpson Trial in Black and White," co-authored with the late Dennis Schatzman.